Thales

Sextant Avionique

Jean-Pierre Arethens

Philippe Chaix

Marc Riedinger

Dominique Bouard

Stephane Rollet

The invention relates to a method and a system for aircraft navigation along a predetermined airway, including an on-board navigation system supplying a positioning integrity of the aircraft during flight relative to said airway respecting an expected position precision performance level, and at least one on-board radio receiver on the aircraft suitable for communicating with at least one land-based radio beacon suitable for supplying a distance of the aircraft relative to said radio beacon. The system includes a module configured to obtain, from a current position of the aircraft and stored data, a tuple of radio beacons to be used, a module configured to obtain a distance measurement of the aircraft relative to each of the N radio beacons of said tuple, a module configured to compute an integrity position from distance measurements obtained by a predetermined computing method, and a module configured to use the computed integrity position as current integrity position.

Method and system for aircraft navigation

An electronic monitoring device for monitoring at least one radionavigation signal during an approach phase to a landing runway, related monitoring method and computer program are disclosed. In one aspect, the each radionavigation signal is obtained from a reception chain on board an aircraft. The device includes a calculation module configured to calculate an angular displacement value in a reference plane, a comparison module configured to compare the angular displacement value with the corresponding radionavigation signal, and a warning module to generate a warning signal based on the comparison between the angular displacement value and the corresponding radionavigation signal. The calculation module is configured to calculate the angular displacement value as a function of a magnitude relating to the aircraft course and glide path according to the monitored radionavigation signal, from avionics equipment independent from the reception chain.

Electronic monitoring device for monitoring at least one radionavigation signal during an approach phase to a landing runway, related monitoring method and computer program

Device for receiving radio-navigation signals, for aiding the piloting of an aircraft, comprising a first master GNSS module and a second slave GNSS module which are dissimilar, the first master GNSS module comprising a first means for processing radio-navigation signals and a first means for computing guidance data (X), the second slave GNSS module comprising a second means for processing radio-navigation signals and a second means for computing guidance data (X) on the basis of the measurements provided by the said second means for processing signals, each GNSS module furthermore comprising a comparison means for comparing between the outputs X,Xof the said first and second means for computing guidance data, suitable for executing the following integrity test:|&#xb7;&#x221a;{square root over (Variance())}and for inferring an integrity defect if the said integrity test is satisfied.

Onboard aircraft landing system, based on a GNSS system, with redundant and dissimilar architecture for high integrity level

Device for determining location information, primary references consolidated for an aircraft, comprising a chain for determining location information comprising means for measuring radionavigation data, suitable means for consolidating, suitable means for computing parameters and suitable means for consolidating the parameters. The device also comprises a chain for determining inertial primary references comprising means for measuring inertial data, suitable means for consolidating, suitable means for computing parameters and suitable means for consolidating the parameters. The device finally comprises a chain for determining anemo-barometric data comprising means for measuring anemo-barometric data, suitable means for consolidating the measured anemo-barometric data, suitable means for computing parameters, and suitable means for consolidating the reference parameters.

Device for determining location information and inertial primary references for an aircraft

A function for generating guidance data from the GNSS data and the inertial data (IRS) with integrated fault detection is distributed on the inertial reference units and the digital processing boards of said multimode receivers. Application to an augmented GLS guidance mode for category I to III approach operations.

Architecture of an onboard aircraft piloting aid system

The invention relates to a procedure for guiding an aircraft in the approach phase comprising of receiving information on a predefined approach path, this information being contained in a message Moriginating from a ground beacon transmitting on the same transmission channel as that of a beacon of a GBAS type positioning accuracy augmentation system, receiving differential positioning radio satellite signals, and correction information from these satellite radio signals in the form of a message Moriginating from a ground central station of an SBAS type positioning accuracy augmentation system, via geostationary satellites of this augmentation system, calculating a corrected position based on the positioning signals and correction information, calculating an elevation and horizontal guidance deviation of the aircraft relative to the predefined approach path, based on the corrected position and information on the predefined approach path.

Procedure for guiding an aircraft in the approach phase and corresponding ground beacon

The method of the invention, which is applicable, in particular, to making positioning signals from GPS and SBAS satellites reliable, consists in performing an instantaneous statistical analysis (of around 1 mn duration) of the correlation peak from the satellite signal receiver and in comparing it to a long-term (several hours) statistical analysis by choosing 5 points which are characteristic of the peak (prompt, &#xb1;0.044 and &#xb1;0.088). If the result of the comparison exceeds a given threshold, the corresponding signals are rejected.

Method for the ground-based monitoring of EWF-type anomalies in a positioning satellite signal

A GPS satellite signal receiver fitted on an aircraft. Velocity measurements are used to obtain position values at a sufficient rate to provide position extrapolation while waiting for the next position measurement. A corrected position is provided on the basis of a measured position by adding to the preceding corrected position, the velocity integrated between two times and a smoothing term which is a fraction of the difference between the measured position and the corrected position at the preceding position measurement time.

Satellite signal receiver with position extrapolation filter

A satellite positioning receiver with integrity check and exclusion of defective axes. In order to improve the reliability of the measurements which are divergent with respect to the measurements provided by the other satellites in the constellation which is used at a given time. The invention proposes a solution for more rapidly recalculating the position by eliminating the data from a defective satellite: the means for calculating the position vector X on the basis of n satellites include an iteration process with n steps, the j,step involving the j,satellite; a position X&prime; is recalculated using only n&minus;1 satellites on the basis of the n steps already calculated, by adding an (n&plus;1),iteration step, using the measurements from the defective satellite of rank m, this last step being slightly different from the previous ones and the difference being such that the calculation result after this (n&plus;1),step is identical to that which an iteration with n&minus;1 steps excluding the divergent satellite of rank m would give.

Satellite signal receiver with integrity control and exclusion of defective axes

A satellite signal GPS receiver which is located at a fixed station on the ground. The receivers are used in differential position measurement systems. In order to eliminate as much as possible the influence of multipaths on the precision of the measured position, it is detected whether the position measurements are coherent with the velocity measurements, The coherence is measured by the variations in the difference V,&minus;dPRC,/dt, where V,is the relative velocity measured along the axis of the i,satellite and dPRC/dt is the time variation of the measured position. If the coherence is not sufficient, the position variation should not correspond to the measured velocity. The measurement of this satellite is then considered to be tainted with error and the satellite is eliminated. In the absence of multipaths, the above difference should be seen to vary periodically. This variation may be detected by a Fourier transform on a sufficient number of measurement samples.

Satellite signal receiver with detector of incoherence between code phase and carrier frequency measurements

A satellite positioning receiver with velocity calculation integrity check. In order to increase the reliability of the velocity measurements by the receiver, it is proposed to measure the divergence between the measurements taken on n satellite director axes (n>4) and to given an alarm if this divergence exceeds a predetermined threshold. The divergence is measured by the mean square error between the calculated velocity vector and the velocities as measured along the director axes and projected on to the calculated velocity vector.

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Beaumont les Valence, France

Jean-Pierre Arethens